julicorn's journey 2 - Moving Up

julicorn

jenni_fer said:

@julicorn I thought I recognised your username on the home buying board!
I enjoyed your original diary when I was also on the MFW journey, have just caught up on this one having stumbled across it this evening.
LOVE the twitten house, everything crossed for you.
House buying is crazy, crazy complicated and stressful at the moment!

Thank you so much! It really is so stressful, we're currently just drinking wine and watching trashy reality TV to try and stop overthinking this whole situation 🙃 

Karmacat

This is amazing!  As I was reading your thoughts on Portslade, I imagined that suiting you better than Hangleton, which is much too ... um, Hangleton, whereas Portslade has an ancienty-centre that mimics a tiny version of Brighton.

But then kitten-twitten spoke up, yay!  You've given it a really high score, and it sounds like mr julicorn has too, in reality     oooh, I really hope there's no bidding war.  Best of luck on Monday!

julicorn

Karmacat said:

This is amazing!  As I was reading your thoughts on Portslade, I imagined that suiting you better than Hangleton, which is much too ... um, Hangleton, whereas Portslade has an ancienty-centre that mimics a tiny version of Brighton.

But then kitten-twitten spoke up, yay!  You've given it a really high score, and it sounds like mr julicorn has too, in reality     oooh, I really hope there's no bidding war.  Best of luck on Monday!

See, we actually have a weirdly soft spot for Hangleton which no one else seems to get The oldest church in Brighton is around there, the Manor seems pretty cool, and they have the world's best stocked tesco express, haha 😄 it's nice seeing the downs and the sea at the same time as well.
Having said all that, our fingers are so tightly crossed for the kitten twitten that there's a certain risk they'll just fall off before Monday 🤣 We just didn't want to leave.

Nichelette

Good luck with your offer, keeping fingers crossed. I'm anxious for you 😂

julicorn

Nichelette said:

Good luck with your offer, keeping fingers crossed. I'm anxious for you 😂

Thanks so much Nichelette! ❤

julicorn

I had a solid 5 hours sleep and have been awake overthinking things since So I might as well see if anyone has opinions/advise here. 

The EA said they sold another house on the terrace for £600k last year, but that doesn't reflect the sold prices I can find online (£530k in February 2021, £550k in March 2021, nothing for 5 years before then). It's relatively easy to see what they looked like online - different layouts, but ultimately comparable. 
He was quite chatty, and I asked him outright what they'd expect with the 'offers in region of' qualifier. He said it's hard to tell, they had 11 viewings yesterday and a further 2 booked in for this coming week, and ultimately will have to see what people offer. He did say he thought £650k would be achievable for the house, given that the one last year sold for £600k (I pointed out the actual sales prices to him at this point because I just can't help myself ). His advise though was to 'go in low', he said even if we offered £650k outright he'd be asked to negotiate from there, so 'might as well look at it like a clutch, go in low and then keep going until you get some bite' (direct quote, thanks Mr EA).

Aaaaaannnnyyyyywho, we really really like it, and aren't too worried about paying more than it's worth because these sort of houses don't come up often. The problem is that we can't actually afford to go much beyond the asking price, so don't really know how to play this one at all. We crunched some numbers yesterday, and £650k is what we've set aside for the purchase (incl mortgage of course), but if we threw everything at it we could theoretically stretch to pretty much £666k (that figure amused me more than it should have). 
I'm still thinking of putting in an initial offer of £625k. I don't want to offer so low that we're not being taken seriously, but also don't want to go in too high and drive other people's offers up too much, and risk losing out as a result. Does that sound ok? Also, what on earth do we do if it ends up being an actual 'best and final offers' situation? Offer our actual max budget, even though it wouldn't leave us with any reserves atm? Urgh. Please send help

Sistergold

Oh @julicorn, Hugs and kisses! You need all the luck you can get and my fingers are also crossed over here for the twitten house. It is really adorable  and you have fallen in love with it! Seems like the house also “spoke” to you and you can see yourself living there! Being a twitten it will be nice and quiet as you want to be central. 

£625k seems a good place to start! Best and final? 🤷‍♀️ 

Having said that I would personally also not have a problem overpaying if I “have to have the house”! My approach was to ask what figure will be acceptable to stop us going back and forth? Once I was told that figure I did not try to negotiate it just agreed. Did not want to go to best and final and did not want to be gazumped. 

julicorn

Thank you so much @Sistergold, I really appreciate it. That sounds like a really good approach, thank you. We were going back and forth last night and both feel like we'd really kick ourselves if the house went to someone else but for an amount we could technically afford - such a tricky emotional position to be in. With our flat we also knew it was the one for us but there wasn't any competition and ultimately more similar properties around than with this one, which made it a lot less nerve-wracking. 

Sistergold

That is the stress at the moment. As a buyer you are prepared to pay the price but that price is now so elusive to say a particular amount. See if you can really “sell” yourself to the estate agent, that you are serious, ready to proceed, the house is what you want etc, don’t want to waste the vendors time going back and forth, how much will it take to take the house off the market and you are ready to proceed. 

After about two years you would have recovered from whatever overpayment and you save yourself all the aggro. 

IF it does not work out just know and believe a better house is around the corner! 

Sistergold

With the twitten house does it mean you have two gardens one at the front and one at the back?